What do you think about monarchy?

[nanogretchen4]

I guess? Being the monarch is a 24/7/365 high pressure job you must keep working at until you are dead. Inheriting the job when you are already well past retirement age is not all it's cracked up to be, as Charles III will soon realize if he hasn't already. Add in his unpopularity and the fact that he must follow the long, long reign of a beloved queen, and I don't think the rest of his life will be very pleasant. And Camilla is going to get a double helping of public harrassment with none of the power.

[Lysandre, the Star-Crossed]

6 hours ago, E said:

On the surface I'm neutral to it, like most things. But Europe's monarchies and kings were responsible for the subjugation, destruction and pain of cultures across all seven continents through hundreds of years. People complain of the confederate flag being horrilbe. I can't see then why they don't point fingers at Britain's monarchy with the same vigor, considering their long history of crimes against humanity as a whole. To me they're a symbol of the worst of humanity has to offer. 

That's because of two things in my opinion.

 

First...Americans are snowflakes compared to a lot of the world and the rest of the world loves to act like they didn't commit genocide, don't have massive bigotry issues, or never practiced slavery. Bring up something to a European like the treatment of the Romani, the Jews, or the Travelers and they usually get pretty quiet and deflective.

 

Second...the UK kind of sucks at imperialism and colonialism. They're horrible, but they did such a terrible job that they lost control of much of the known world. Same logic as why everyone remembers the atrocities Germany committed but seems to forget or not now about Japanese atrocities during the last world war or various atrocities committed across Europe, Africa, and Asia afterwards. When you're better than other people at doing horrible things you tend to take the spotlight, and frankly that's why America is highlighted fpr what numerous other countries also did. We're just better at it (that's not a good thing) and have managed not to fade into the background thusfar.

[Epitaph]

8 hours ago, Lysandre, the Star-Crossed said:

That's because of two things in my opinion.

 

First...Americans are snowflakes compared to a lot of the world and the rest of the world loves to act like they didn't commit genocide, don't have massive bigotry issues, or never practiced slavery. Bring up something to a European like the treatment of the Romani, the Jews, or the Travelers and they usually get pretty quiet and deflective.

 

Second...the UK kind of sucks at imperialism and colonialism. They're horrible, but they did such a terrible job that they lost control of much of the known world. Same logic as why everyone remembers the atrocities Germany committed but seems to forget or not now about Japanese atrocities during the last world war or various atrocities committed across Europe, Africa, and Asia afterwards. When you're better than other people at doing horrible things you tend to take the spotlight, and frankly that's why America is highlighted fpr what numerous other countries also did. We're just better at it (that's not a good thing) and have managed not to fade into the background thusfar.

 

That's somewhat skewed due to time. There's none alive from the eras of european expansion. There's no aztecs to lament about anything because they're all dead. Other tribes and civilizations in the south americas, the north americas, africa, the middle east, asia, australia, the scottish, irish, welsh, the phillipines, the hawaiians, the maori. There are likely none living to recount the days of european expansion, other than what's been recorded. Centuries upon centuries of collective abuse forgotten to time vs the relatively small time frame the united states has existed for, which, is important to note founded because of european expansion.

 

At the height of its power across the centuries no other country or conglomerate union of nations has ever matched the body count of destroyed civilizations or the sabotaged peoples under the rule of europe's monarchy. The US simply hasn't had the time to exist to commit such acts on such scale, and all of its current acts are made possible because they stem from the groundwork laid by their forerunners.

 

When I look at the woes in today's society, the entire planet, the ancestors to many of them stem from what was done by the monarchs and kings of europe centuries ago. But a hundred years is enough time to forget collectively. It hasn't even been a hundred years since the manmade catastrophe of the dustbowl, and we already practice the same farming techniques that led to it in overabundance now.

 

So to make it philosophical, what's worse? The bastard father who laid the groundwork, or the bastard son who merely follows the traintracks to their destination?

[Jusey1]

I'll be honest, I somewhat celebrated the Queen's death due to being Irish myself (or well, Irish heritage that is. My dad side of the family came from Ireland but I was born in America)... So my opinion on the Monarchy is quite simply it should end with the Queen's death. Worry about your own people and stop controlling other countries so harshly and stop murdering protestors who simply wants to free of the Monarch's Governmental control over their lives and their homes. Just end the system, really...

[RileyA]

2 hours ago, Jusey1 said:

I'll be honest, I somewhat celebrated the Queen's death due to being Irish myself (or well, Irish heritage that is. My dad side of the family came from Ireland but I was born in America)... So my opinion on the Monarchy is quite simply it should end with the Queen's death. Worry about your own people and stop controlling other countries so harshly and stop murdering protestors who simply wants to free of the Monarch's Governmental control over their lives and their homes. Just end the system, really...

 

Do you know for sure that your Irish family are Irish and not there as part of the Norman invasion? You can usually have some idea by your surname. 

 

If they were, then she was essentially your Queen too.

[Ceebs]

3 hours ago, Jusey1 said:

I somewhat celebrated the Queen's death

 

3 hours ago, Jusey1 said:

So my opinion on the Monarchy is quite simply it should end with the Queen's death.

But it didn't end with her death. And even if it had, celebrating the end of the monarchy and celebrating the death of another human being are two very different things.

[Purple Red Panda]

I honestly don't see the appeal of it. I find the whole thing to be an undemocratic anachronistic nonsense that has no place in the modern world. No one has ever yet offered me a reasonable explanation as to how being descended from successful early medieval warlords grants you magic DNA that make you fit to reign over other people. Alas, I doubt the UK is going to be free of it any time soon.

[Alaska Native Manitou]

[Tetus]

Seems kinda lame

[Typhoon]

With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the British monarchy has lost its reason to exist. King Charles lacks the skill and popularity to really live up to the role and I don't think that will improve any time soon. I say get rid of it as it's become more and more irrelevant every day. We don't need state sponsored celebrities to act as cultural figureheads anymore and we defintley shouldn't treat them as such.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Typhoon
changed celebrates to celebrities

[Lilibulero]

Well, I've no serious leanings towards or away from monarchy, I just see it as something that's ' just there' and I'm aware of how history is measured in kings and queens.

 

But I see two red flags with the new king. He seems to attract the wrong sort of writing implement, then when it's in the wrong place on his writing desk/ leaks ink, he has a minor meltdown.

 

OK, it just might be the stress he's under due to grief and heavy commitments right now, but I wonder if he regularly flies off the handle. We'll just have to wait and see, eh?

[Lilibulero]

On 9/11/2022 at 7:41 PM, Purple Red Panda said:

I honestly don't see the appeal of it. I find the whole thing to be an undemocratic anachronistic nonsense that has no place in the modern world. No one has ever yet offered me a reasonable explanation as to how being descended from successful early medieval warlords grants you magic DNA that make you fit to reign over other people. Alas, I doubt the UK is going to be free of it any time soon.

Alternatively, imagine being born into that system and having to live your whole life like that, even if you don't want to, knowing that if you abdicate, there'll be all hell to pay.

A bit like someone telling me that because my Norman warlord ancestry was brutal to the Saxons, I should be punished. 

Seems the queen was a person caught up in a system too.

[Purple Red Panda]

1 hour ago, Lilibulero said:

Alternatively, imagine being born into that system and having to live your whole life like that, even if you don't want to, knowing that if you abdicate, there'll be all hell to pay.

On one level I do feel a certain amount of sympathy for the royals. They are born into this weird and frankly in my opinion unhealthy environment where their lives are never truly their own. Yes, they have a vast level of priviledge and don't have to worry about a lot of stuff that normal people do but they are basically public property and are subject to constant scrutiny. The best thing for them would be the abolishion of the monarchy.

[Lilibulero]

I agree @Purple Red Panda, it's a no- win for us and them.

Probably they should start to fade into the background, like Scandinavian royalty.

I hear Charles III will slim it down, Harry has already left.

[Alaska Native Manitou]

Charles is less bad than Elizabeth. He actually admitted slavery was wrong & apologized for it. That was during an official visit to Barbados in November 2021.

 

Fun fact: in Russia it's illegal to criticize Putin; in the U.K. it's illegal to call for abolishment of the monarchy (on mainstream media at least).

[Sally]

I've now read several articles detailing the personal fortune that Charles has accumulated over his lifetime, which is due in the most part from the investments he's bought with his share of the monarchy gravy train, and for which he is not taxed.  Besides actual cold cash, he has a long list of estates and land.  He is worth in the billions.  He should be fired by the British people who are suffering more and more from the rise in the cost of living.  

[Nick2]

Nice work if you can get it.

[Purple Red Panda]

If we must have a monarchy can the sovereign at least go back to curing cases of scrofula again, the lazy wretches haven't used their royal healing magics for ages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_touch

[Lilibulero]

If so, we'll have to see to it that scrofula makes a comeback then, as it's not been a popular disease among the hoi polloi for at least a century ( mind you the Tories are trying to bring it and king cholera back, judging by their efforts) @Purple Red Panda

[Snao Cone]

On 9/11/2022 at 2:09 AM, RileyA said:

Do you know for sure that your Irish family are Irish and not there as part of the Norman invasion? You can usually have some idea by your surname. 

 

If they were, then she was essentially your Queen too.

No, someone from Ireland doesn't have to have some magical untainted blood to oppose the British monarchy ruling over them. It's utterly absurd to say someone can't oppose colonialism and occupation if they have any genealogical ambiguity. 

[Sarah-Sylvia]

In fantasy,  there's something cool about royalty. In reality though.. not so much

[-1=e^ipi]

As a Canadian, this whole thing is a giant waste of tax money. The government is going to pay for civil servants to take the day off, they are going to force stop employees in federally regulated work places from working for a day (less people working = more inflation), they are going to pay for military jets to fly everywhere in honor of the monarch, they are going to pay to jet all the fancy people across the Atlantic Ocean to attend a funeral at the tax payer's expense while lecturing us about climate change, they are going to pay to change the faces on our new money, etc. If the government wants to take a day off, why not honor the people dying in Ukraine, or the people who were killed by the Taliban?

 

Monarchies should be abolished everywhere. They are undemocratic, violate equality under the law, and in Canada's case violate separation of religion and state (the monarch is necessarily the head of the Anglican church, Catholics are explicitly prohibited from being monarchs, and the monarchy is based on this fantasy of divine right of monarchs, which is reflected on our money).

 

Also, accepting relatively harmless constitutional monarchies makes it easier for absolute monarchies to justify their existence as they can point to the U.K. to argue that monarchies are acceptable. In recent history, we have see the Thai monarchy shut down pro-democracy protests, and for all we know Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

 

It is ironic that Justin Trudeau insists that there needs to be a day off to honor this backward relic of the past. Especially as he simultaneously proclaims that Canada has ongoing (not past) genocide against indigenous people, and says that we need to decolonize / have reconciliation with indigenous people. It's almost like he is looking for an excuse to take the day off at the taxpayers expense (like how he added orange shirt day as a new national holiday last year and then ended up using it to go surfing in Tofino) and maybe isn't genuine.

[RileyA]

9 hours ago, Snao Cone said:

No, someone from Ireland doesn't have to have some magical untainted blood to oppose the British monarchy ruling over them. It's utterly absurd to say someone can't oppose colonialism and occupation if they have any genealogical ambiguity. 

 

I'm saying their people likely came there as part of her family oppressing Ireland. If they didn't travel as part of that, they'd likely still be in the UK or France. As I said, one knows from their surname. 

 

Either way celebrating the death of an old woman is crass. I see plenty of Irish Americans doing that atm, people who haven't even left New England. It just shows us to the ignorant people the rest of the world assume us to be.

 

 

[Snao Cone]

9 hours ago, RileyA said:

I'm saying their people likely came there as part of her family oppressing Ireland. If they didn't travel as part of that, they'd likely still be in the UK or France. As I said, one knows from their surname. 

You're talking about something that was 850 years ago, likely 30+ generations back. Whatever their surname might be now, that doesn't mean they don't have other ancestry that was in Ireland much earlier; equally so if they had an "authentically Irish" surname they would likely have some other lineage that's mixed in with it down the line. No racial or regional categorization of human beings has ever successfully stopped mixed families from being formed. Surnames only tell a very small part of that over time. If you believe that strictly patrilineal heritage going back a thousand years or more determines a present day person's political opinions no matter what they individually think and believe, then that's ludicrous. People with names you would likely dismiss as not actually Irish suffered through much of the same oppression and fought the same battles for the nation's independence, and yet you would say "Um actually you're a monarchist because your last name is derived from French."

[JimmyJazz]

Sandor Clegane sums up my thoughts on the monarchy in three perfect words.

 

[Autumn ace]

I think monarchy’s are a relic of a different time. No one should just inherit control of a country (or an entire commonwealth). Not to mention, it’d be pretty easy to get rid of a monarchy because a lot of the important stuff is established through parliament and prime ministers. 
I’ve never lived in a monarchy, so I’m speaking from observation not experience, but I think the monarchy needs to go